Saudi Foreign Lobby Hooked with Hillary/Podesta

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

This is the time when foreign governments are ratcheting up their respective lobby operations in the United States, we are in a major election cycle. Not only will ad agencies hired by countries like Saudi Arabia but they will work to troll and re-tool attitudes and propaganda.

This began as noted at least last Fall and there will be a higher, more robust objective that will fund those in Washington DC and those hoping to have domestic influence in DC in 2016.

Hillary and her top campaign architect, John Podesta are the core designers and recipients of foreign influence.

Saudi Arabia Continues Hiring Spree of American Lobbyists, Public Relations Experts

Intercept: Saudi Arabia is in the market for a better reputation in Washington, D.C.

In September alone, foreign lobbying disclosure documents show the Saudi government signing deals with PR powerhouse Edelman and lobbying leviathan the Podesta Group, according to recent disclosures.

Edelman, the largest privately owned public relations agency in the world, is known for helping clients win favorable media coverage on mainstream outlets. The Podesta Group is a lobbying firm founded by Tony Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The new signings are the latest in a year-long hiring spree by the Persian Gulf state as it further builds up its already formidable political arsenal inside the Beltway. The Saudi Arabian Royal Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

In March, the Saudi Royal Embassy retained two influential lobbying firms, DLA Piper and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. DLA Piper, for instance, employs a small army of former government officials, including retired U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and George Mitchell. Also in March, the embassy retained two firms that specialize in analyzing big data for political clients, Targeted Victory and Zignal Labs.

Saudi Arabia’s political operation already includes former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who chairs one of the largest Republican Super PACs in the country, as well as the public relations firm MSLGROUP/Qorvis, and Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company that funds several influential American political groups, including the American Petroleum Institute. Aramco’s U.S. subsidiary, Saudi Refining, is a registered agent of the Saudi government. The government also finances a number of think tanks and universities, and has made contributions to prominent American nonprofits, including the Clinton Foundation.

The Podesta Group contract is with the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court. The contract, filed in the Justice Department’s foreign lobbying database, says that the firm will provide “public relations” work for the center.

“It is our company policy not to comment further on our work for clients beyond what is required by law and to direct reporters and other interested parties to our clients for any additional information,” said Missi Tessier, a spokesperson for the Podesta Group, when reached for more information about the relationship.

Edelman’s contract calls for the firm to “engage with opinion influencers, establish media engagement opportunities for [sic] principal, and assist in opinion editorial placement” on behalf of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority.

The Saudi regime is currently facing yet another public relations crisis as the Kingdom moves to execute Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the young nephew of a government critic.

The nation also faces international outcry over the widespread killing of civilians in Yemen. Since March, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition that includes the U.S., U.K., Egypt and several Persian Gulf nations to support the Yemeni government in its war against the Houthi rebels. The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly attacked schools, hospitals, and other civilian targets, including recent reports of a wedding party that was bombed, killing over 100 people.

Last week, I spoke to a number of lawmakers about Saudi human rights abuses, but found them extremely reluctant to criticize the Kingdom. Disclosures reveal that the lobbying firms that have worked for Saudi Arabia for years communicate frequently with senior members of Congress. Beyond entrenched military and economic ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States, the Kingdom appears to be working to maintain its political clout.

Hillary and Bill Back in the News with Big Money

Posted on January 4, 2016January 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

If Hillary wins, imagine what Bill is gonna do with all that time on his ah…hands….will he just wander around the White House? nah….

ABCNews: Hillary has called Bill her “secret weapon.” Her GOP opponents, however, have wasted no time in trying to make him a liability.

At a campaign rally last week, Republican front-runner Donald Trump accused the former president of “tremendous abuse” toward women, calling him “one of the great abusers of the world.” Trump has continued to escalate his attacks, invoking Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and tweeting that Bill has “demonstrated a penchant for sexism.”

Republican candidate Rand Paul echoed Trump, calling Bill “a great abuser of women in the workplace.” Carly Fiorina has also called Bill’s past “fair game” for attack.

Report: Hillary’s State Dept OK’d $50 Million in Bill Clinton Speeches

Breitbart: Bill Clinton reportedly made nearly $50 million from more than 220 paid events that the State Department approved while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, according to an Associated Press report.

Mainstream media outlets have been scrutinizing the Clintons, especially Bill Clinton’s speaking fees that doubled or tripled after his wife became Secretary of State, after the many revelations in Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell said Schweizer’s blockbuster book was a “playbook”for any news organization investigating the Clintons and was “overshadowing” Hillary Clinton’s campaign rollout.

According to the Associated Press, the Office of Government Ethics reportedly warned that the State Department’s office “has extremely limited capacity to respond to the increased demands on its program” and said that it was “concerned about the lack of compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements in the areas of financial disclosure, annual training and ethics agreements.”

Foreign governments with atrocious human rights records and banks dealing with scandals paid Clinton hefty sums for appearances.

Barclays paid Clinton $650,000 for two appearances in 2011 just months after it “agreed to pay nearly $300 million in penalties for violating financial sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Libya and Burma.”

The Associated Press also found that UBS Bank paid Clinton $840,000 for five events in 2011 and 2012 “less than two years after the Swiss bank had acknowledged a massive tax evasion scheme aiding American clients and paid $780 million in penalties.”

In December of 2011, the United Arab Emirates reportedly paid Clinton $600,000 to appear at a “government-sponsored event.” In 2010, the State Department approved a Bangkok event that was reportedly “sponsored by a Thai government energy ministry and state gas firm.”

The report found that the State Department did not approve of an event at the China Philanthropy Forum in 2012 because of “concerns that the event’s sponsor was an association made up of former and current senior Chinese government officials.” But nine months after Hillary Clinton left the agency, Bill Clinton “eventually spoke at the forum’s annual conference.”

Bill Clinton has vowed to continue his paid speeches and appearances while his wife runs for president, telling NBC News, “I got to pay our bills.”

Puerto Rico Fake Passport, Gain U.S. Entry

Posted on January 4, 2016January 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Puerto is in economic default.

Puerto Rico’s governor said the U.S. territory’s Department of Justice is trying to anticipate any lawsuits after the island said it would default on some debt due Jan. 1, according to an interview with CNBC.

Puerto Rico said last week that it would default for the second time in five months, but would pay the bulk of $1 billion due, opening the door to potential litigation from affected creditors.

“Our Department of Justice is trying to anticipate any lawsuit we will have, but to be 100 percent prepared will be very hard,” said Alejandro Garcia Padilla in an interview with CNBC.

“It will be very costly – that litigation, for the commonwealth and our creditors,” he said. “Every dollar used to pay lawyers will be a dollar … not available to pay creditors.”

Illegal Aliens Use Fake Puerto Rican Birth Certificates to Get U.S. Passports, Licenses

JudicialWatch: As if the country’s monstrous immigration crisis weren’t dire enough, an increasing number of illegal aliens are using fake Puerto Rican birth certificates to obtain authentic U.S. passports and driver’s licenses.

Located about 1,000 miles southeast of Florida, Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory about two decades after the Caribbean island was acquired from Spain at the end of the Spanish-American war. Puerto Ricans are American citizens at birth though they don’t have the right to vote in federal elections and the island has only one non-voting representative in Congress.

In recent years a record number of Puerto Ricans have left their troubled island for the U.S. and a big chunk has settled on Florida. A few months ago a study found that the island’s ongoing economic recession has led to a mass exodus not seen in more than five decades. In 2014 alone 84,000 people left Puerto Rico for the U.S. mainland, the study found. One recent news report referred to the Puerto Rican crisis as an economic exodus that could push two-thirds of its population to live in the U.S. The island has an eye-popping $73 billion debt, a collapsing healthcare system and nearly half of its population living in poverty.

It’s fair to say that for years Uncle Sam has welcomed Puerto Ricans with open arms and that has created lots of opportunities for fraud. There has been a rise in the number of cases involving the use of false Puerto Rican birth certificates by illegal immigrants, according to a south Florida newspaper report that focuses on the specifics of a recent case. It involves an illegal alien from Colombia arrested in Florida after trying to get a U.S. passport by claiming to be an American citizen born in Puerto Rico. The 35-year-old man, Edinson Canaveral Sánchez, used a fake Puerto Rican birth certificate to get a valid Florida driver’s license more than three years ago.

The newspaper article points out that this case is the latest in a series involving the use of fake Puerto Rican birth certificates by illegal immigrants in south Florida. In the last year alone more than 12 cases have surfaced in Miami federal court, the story reveals. The defendants, all Spanish-speaking illegal aliens, have all illegally obtained Puerto Rican birth certificates to get American passports or driver’s licenses. Sánchez has been criminally charged and is scheduled to be tried this month in a Broward County federal court.

It turns out that fraud involving Puerto Rican birth certificates has been pervasive for many years, yet the U.S. government and its various agencies accept the documents blindly. The problem got so out of control that back in 2010 Puerto Rico’s government invalidated every birth certificate and issued new ones considered to be safer. One mainstream news report called it a “radical solution to what many say has been a serious and growing crisis involving Puerto Rican birth certificates, which are used to apply for everything from U.S. passports to Medicaid.”

The same report, published in April, 2010, revealed that the U.S. State Department was well aware of the problem. In fact, the agency estimated back then that a mind-boggling 40% of all U.S. passport fraud cases involved Puerto Rican birth certificates. Four years later, a separate news report confirmed that little had changed, that the fraud is still rampant. Here’s an excerpt of the story published in the summer of 2014 by a Florida-based nonprofit investigative journalism outlet: “Counterfeit, altered or stolen birth certificates coming from Puerto Rico are the Holy Grail to Florida’s undocumented. With a phony birth certificate you can live the American dream. You can also enroll in school, land a job and get a driver’s license.”

Gitmo: Soon to be at 90 Detainees, Then What?

Posted on January 4, 2016January 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Control of the released detainees after transfer? Hardly.

Former Guantanamo detainee travels to Argentina, calls for asylum for remaining detainees

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – A former Guantanamo detainee who was resettled in Uruguay is asking Argentina to grant asylum for detainees still at the U.S. detention facility.

Abu Wa’el Dhiab wore a Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuit as he told Barricada TV that he believes “the Argentine government could receive the prisoners at Guantanamo here in a humanitarian way.” Calls to the Foreign Ministry seeking comment were not returned.

From the Director of National Intelligence:

Section 307 (a) (2) An assessment of the likelihood that such detainees will engage in terrorism.

Based on trends identified during the past eleven years, we assess that some detainees currently at GTMO will seek to reengage in terrorist or insurgent activities after they are transferred. Transfers to countries with ongoing conflicts and internal instability as well as active recruitment by insurgent and terrorist organizations pose particular problems. While enforcement of transfer conditions may deter reengagement by many former detainees and delay reengagement by others, some detainees who are determined to reengage will do so regardless of any transfer conditions, albeit probably at a lower rate than if they were transferred without conditions.

Section 307 (a) (2) An assessment of the likelihood that such detainees will communicate with persons in terrorist organizations.

Former GTMO detainees routinely communicate with each other, families of other former detainees, and previous associates who are members of terrorist organizations. The reasons for communication span from the mundane (reminiscing about shared experiences) to the nefarious (planning terrorist operations). We assess that some GTMO detainees transferred in the future also will communicate with other former GTMO detainees and persons in terrorist organizations. We do not consider mere communication with individuals or organizations— including other former GTMO detainees—an indicator of reengagement. Rather, the motives, intentions, and purposes of each communication are taken into account when assessing whether the individual has reengaged.

Source: ‘Al Qaeda followers’ among 17 being transferred from Gitmo

FNC: The group of 17 detainees expected to be transferred out of Guantanamo Bay as early as this week includes “multiple bad guys” and “Al Qaeda followers,” a source who has reviewed the list told Fox News.

Little is known publicly about which prisoners are being prepared for transfer, but the Obama administration has notified Congress it plans to ship out 17 detainees – some of whom could be transferred within days.

While the identities of the men are closely held, the source who spoke with Fox News said it includes “multiple bad guys … not taxi drivers and cooks.”

This is a reference to the administration’s transfer of Ibrahim al Qosi to Sudan in 2012. Despite entering a “re-integration program,” the one-time cook for Usama bin Laden has now fled to Yemen, where he is among the leadership of Al Qaeda in Yemen. That transfer is now said to be a source of considerable heartburn for the Obama administration.

As for those on the docket for immediate transfer, the source told Fox News the administration will not identify the detainees until they are relocated in their new home countries — because knowing who they are in advance would create further roadblocks and increase the controversy.

Multiple countries have agreed to take the men, in small groups, and the source said some of the countries were so-called first timers — a reference to the fact those countries had not taken Guantanamo detainees in the past.

The move to clear out 17 detainees is seen as part of the administration’s long-term plan to ultimately shutter the detention camp.

The transfer of 17 prisoners would bring the number of detainees left down to 90 – the bulk of whom cannot be transferred to another country.

Many in Congress, though, fiercely oppose any plan to bring those detainees to the U.S.

President Obama in his year-end news conference justified the closure of the detention camp, claiming “Guantanamo continues to be one of the key magnets for jihadi recruitment.” But the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, which tracks jihadist propaganda, said that terrorist groups have moved on from using Guantanamo in their recruitment efforts.

“The topic of Guantanamo prisoners appeared rather frequently in Al-Qaeda’s propaganda in past years,” MEMRI’s Eliot Zweig said. “However, the topic has received little to no attention in the last year or two … Gitmo hasn’t received much attention in official ISIS releases.”

U.S. Arms Exports to Mexico Mostly to Blame for Violence

Posted on January 4, 2016January 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

US arms, exported legally, are behind many violent crimes in Mexico (CHARTS)

Mexican military and police authorities are still at war with the country’s drug trafficking organizations. And the fight still isn’t going well. Since 2006, the conflict has generated as many as 164,345 civilian deaths. Experts are still unable to agree if murders are going up or down.

More Mexicans have died violently over the past decade than Afghan or Iraqi civilians over the same period, combined. High-powered weaponry, along with handguns, is playing a key role in driving the violence.

Many commentators assume that arms and ammunition are flooding into the arsenals of drug cartels from illegal dealers spanning the US-Mexican border. There are empirical studies substantiating this claim. Other analysts contend that some military-grade firepower consists of stolen and leftover kit from Central American conflicts of the 1970s and ’80s. They are also partly right.

But the full picture is more complex.

Mexican imports of weapons 2001-2012
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In fact, at least 50 countries have exported military-grade weapons and associated materiel to Mexico over the past five decades —with well over half of them exceeding $1 million in sales over the period. There has been a steady uptick in sales since 2006, and especially since former President Felipe Calderon ratcheted up the drug war.

According to UN customs data compiled by NISAT, a research group, the United States is by far the largest exporter of military arms to Mexico. The sums are not trivial. The US has exported more than $300 million worth of “military style” weapons to Mexican authorities since the 1960s; more than half of those sales have been since the year 2000. Top exporters following the US are Italy, Belgium, France and Israel, some of the world’s largest manufacturers.

These firearms include crew-serviced machine guns, assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, heavy explosives and related munitions, parts and accessories. However, the US and others also sell vast quantities of “civilian-style” weapons, including shotguns, handguns, and related ammunition.

An arms mapping visualization developed by the Igarapé Institute with partners including Google Ideas shows that Mexican imports of all types of weaponry increased steadily from 2006 onward. Moreover, the share of all imports that included military-style weapons shot up from around 10-25 percent a year to 30-50 percent each year during this timeframe.

While many of these weapons are officially destined for the Mexican armed forces and the country’s more than 1,600 federal, state and local police agencies, some of them fall into the hands of cartels and militia. In Mexico, military-style arms are frequently diverted and leaked from official arsenals. In some cases weapons are sent to the wrong customers altogether. For example, a recent high-profile case involved 9,000 firearms shipped illegally to Mexico by a German firm.

Of course, military-issue firearms and ammunition are routinely trafficked across international borders, including from the US. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has traced high-powered rifles and handguns shipped by land, air and sea. One especially controversial operation dubbed Fast and Furious allowed weapons from the US to be smuggled to Mexican cartels for tracking purposes —hundreds were lost en route and linked to subsequent crimes.

Arms exports to Mexico, 2000-2014
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Igarapé Institute and University of San Diego research has determined that a considerable proportion of illegally acquired firearms in Mexico were originally sold by federally licensed dealers in the US. Meanwhile, older issue US and Soviet-style weaponry is also trafficked from post-conflict Central American countries, including via El Salvador, Honduras and of course Guatemala.

Military and police stocks in some of these Central American countries were singled out by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala as the largest source of illegal firearms in the region. Twentieth-century M16s and AK-47s have surfaced in the arsenals of the Juarez, Sinaloa, Zeta and Gulf cartels, though the quantities are comparatively modest.

Making matters more complicated, the Mexican authorities lack a robust marking and tracing system. They have traditionally relied on their US counterparts for background checks on seized weapons. Getting a handle on leaked and trafficked weapons has simply not been a priority of successive governments.

In the past, samples of seized weapons were submitted to the ATF (using eTrace). Extrapolations generated from these assessments suggest that up to 70 percent of recovered firearms were from the US, though these numbers are disputed on both sides of the border.

Top arms exporters to Mexico
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While internationally supportive of more gun regulation, Mexico is not especially transparent when it comes to reporting on weapons exports, imports or recovery, as the Small Arms Survey arms barometer makes clear. It is also unable to comprehensively get to grips with where illegal guns are coming from.

At least part of the problem is that under Mexican law, all firearms seized by the government must be surrendered to the armed forces within 48 hours. The military is charged with “safeguarding” these arms and is under no compulsion to assist in related law enforcement investigations. The fact that the armed forces may well be one of the key sources of illicit arms is problematic, to say the least.

In the case of the US, ATF officials are required to submit a formal request to the Mexican Attorney General for each and every weapon (with accompanying data on the firearm type/caliber). As a result, most weapons are simply not traced and abusers go unpunished.

The development of a more effective system for tracing the origins of illicit firearms is a priority for both the US and Mexican governments. The current approach is deeply inefficient. If Mexico wants to do more to stop the shooting, it cannot afford to keep asking questions later.